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Another is Husqvarna Forest & Garden (Charlotte, N.C.), which manufactures
what was formerly known as the Flymo trimmer. Their number is (800)
487-5962 and their website address is www.husqvarna.com.

Gypped again
I've read that gypsum can help alleviate soil compaction. How?-New York.

This is a persistent, but inaccurate, belief. Although gypsum offers
several benefits (notably, it improves sodic soils by displacing sodium),
it has no ability to directly alleviate compaction. Compaction is
essentially a physical problem that requires mechanical remediation such as
cultivation or aeration, as the situation warrants.

Shallow roots
At our golf club, we have trees with surface roots. A board member is
insisting that deeper watering will solve the problem. I think that most
trees naturally are shallow-rooted. Who's right?-Arizona

In general, trees grow roots wherever conditions are right. Mainly, that
means where oxygen is available and water is present but not excessive.
Thus, tree roots growing on the surface typically are doing so because that
is where they must be to get what they need.

Common conditions that can deprive tree roots of water or oxygen include:
* The soil is highly compacted, which means that both air and water have
trouble penetrating. Simply soaking the soil in such a situation will do no
good, or even make the situation worse.

* The soil is poorly drained (perhaps due to compaction). In this case, the
problem may be too much water, which displaces oxygen in the soil pores.

A soil probe can give you a general idea of how wet, dry or compacted the
soil is at various depths.

Correcting such problems is not necessarily an easy task and involves both
removing existing surface roots and correcting the underlying causes of
them. Removing roots can pose considerable risk to trees, so you should
consider hiring a consulting arborist before undertaking extensive work of
this sort. Likewise, root-zone modification to encourage deeper rooting can
be an involved and fairly expensive process, depending on exactly what's
needed. Thus, involving an arborist to advise you-if not actually perform
the work-would be prudent.

An important option to consider, where the site use allows it, is to spread
a 6-inch layer of wood mulch under the tree out to the drip line. This
preserves aeration, protects surface roots from physical damage, reduces
further compaction and provides a smoother surface on which to walk or
drive mowers, carts, etc. The mulch layer does not do much to remediate the
root zone. However, it is an economical way of coping with the existing
surface roots and preventing additional compaction from traffic. It also is
a good preventive measure for newly planted trees.

Consulting
I am a part-time consultant. How do businesses work with them? Do they have
a horticultural consultant on staff, or do they refer clients to
one?-Michigan

I spoke with two horticultural consultants about this. The first, Karen
Kerkhoff, of Kerkhoff and Associates (Stillwell, Kan.), consults in the
Kansas City area. According to Kerkhoff, few contractors seek her services
directly, though they occasionally refer clients to her to address specific
problems. In addition, Kerkhoff conducts seminars and finds that many local
contractors attend them. Otherwise, however, they are not a significant
proportion of her business. In a direct consulting capacity, Kerkhoff more
often works with landscape architects, troubleshooting and developing soil
recommendations, among other things.

Skip Kincaid, of Skip Kincaid and Associates (Kirkwood, Mo.), is an
urban-forestry consultant in the St. Louis area. Like Kerkhoff, Kincaid
works only occasionally with contractors. One reason for this, Kincaid
thinks, is the competitiveness of contracting, which keeps prices low.
Working with a thin margin, contractors cannot usually afford to involve
consultants in projects. The exceptions largely consist of those who are
successful in narrow specialties and command a more comfortable profit
margin that can accommodate the expense of consultants. Kincaid more
frequently works with architects and engineers, often to address special
problems concerning trees on construction sites. Perhaps 30 percent of
Kincaid's business comes from homeowners who call him directly.

One thing that Kincaid and Kerkhoff have in common is that they are both
well-known in their respective locales, having previously worked in
positions that brought them high public visibility. Not everyone has such
an advantage, but creating more visibility should be a critical aspect of
any consultant's business. Kincaid, for example, devotes at least 20
percent of his time to "indirect marketing." This consists, in part, of
teaching short courses and seminars for various organizations, which
Kincaid does for no fee. This type of activity establishes goodwill with
agencies and other groups-park departments, Master Gardener programs and
local governments, for example-which then often become significant sources
of referrals. Likewise, Kerkhoff frequently teaches, conducts seminars and
maintains contacts through professional organizations and industry
activities.

Media reports of frog deformities abound. The frenzy began in 1995 with the
now-famous discovery of multi-limbed frogs by Minnesota school children.
Since then, environmentalists have trotted out the usual list of suspected
causes (pesticides chief among them, of course) and the familiar refrain
that frogs are "ecological barometers" warning us of impending
environmental catastrophe. However, the only thing that can be said with
certainty is that no one fully understands what is happening to frogs, or
why.

That environmentalists will blame chemicals is practically a given, though
evidence of their role in frog deformities is tenuous. However, some
scientists also suspect increased ultraviolet radiation (presumably due to
a thinning ozone layer), predation by fish or other animals and microscopic
parasites as possible causes of frog deformities.

The latter factor has received significant media coverage lately. Dr.
Stanley Sessions, a researcher at Hartwick College (Oneonta, N.Y.) and
leading authority on frog deformities, has been studying trematodes, tiny
parasitic worms that can cause frog deformities, since the 1980s. He
believes they may be responsible for most of the deformities observed in
wild frogs. Additional findings published this year by other researchers
strongly support Sessions, making this the best-documented and most-likely
cause of deformities.

Frog deformities are not new, with scientific reports dating back
centuries. What is new is the degree of attention they're receiving. Aside
from the mainstream media, organizations such as the North American
Reporting Center for Amphibian Malformations (NARCAM) and the Declining
Amphibian Populations Task Force (with their newsletter Froglog) heighten
awareness through internet sites, among other avenues. These groups even
encourage grass-roots or "backyard" reporting of deformities.

With such widespread awareness of something that few had even heard of 10
years ago, Sessions-whose own studies are among the most widely
cited-questions whether "deformities are on the rise or the scale of the
problem has been overblown. An analysis of [news] reports of deformities
compiled by [NARCAM] suggests the latter." Sessions explains, "Numerous web
pages on deformed frogs have fueled widespread controversy and alarm in the
media from the very beginning, effectively performing an end-run around
scientific research.sorting this out could be a scientific nightmare."

Landscaping adds significant benefits to a home, including attractiveness,
energy conservation and screening. Conventional wisdom says that these
benefits should translate into higher home values and sale prices. But do
they? If so, how much? Without answers to such questions, homeowners may be
reluctant to invest in landscaping.

To better define the value of landscaping, Clemson University researchers
conducted a study of home sale prices and compared the value of
otherwise-similar homes with varying levels of landscape quality. To do so,
they obtained the sale prices of 218 single-family homes in Greenville,
S.C., and correlated them with various characteristics including lot size
and quality of landscaping of the homes in question as well as adjacent
properties. Not only were the types, sizes and conditions of plants
considered, but also the overall design. Thus, by the researchers' own
admission, certain subjective elements entered the evaluation. Landscapes
were rated "poor," "average," "good" or "excellent."

The results confirm that better landscapes result in higher home values.
Homes with "good" landscapes were valued 4 to 5 percent higher than those
with "average" landscapes, and those with "excellent" landscapes showed0 a
6 to 7 percent increase in value over those that were "good." The
researchers also combined the "poor" and "average" categories and the
"good" and "excellent" categories. The difference between "poor-to-average"
landscapes and "good-to-excellent" ones amounted to 14 to 17 percent of
home value, depending on lot size.

Homes adjacent to properties with less than "excellent" landscaping had
slightly lower value, amounting to a reduction of about $1,000 to $2,000.

The researchers caution that the results of this study may not apply to
other regions, where greater or lesser value may be placed on landscapes.
However, results such as these provide more concrete estimates of the
return on investment that a landscape can bring, and confirm the financial
wisdom of a good landscape.